Software update: VMWare Workstation 5.0 beta

VMWare has released a beta release of Workstation 5.0. With this program, virtual computers can be created on the computer, on which the same or a completely different operating system can be installed. These virtual PCs can communicate with each other through a virtual network. A lot has changed in version 5.0. For example, support for 64-bit operating systems, Longhorn Workstation 5 and Mandrake 10 has been added. The performance has also improved. The full release notes can be found on this one page will be reviewed, but here are the highlights in a nutshell:

What’s New in Version 5

• Multiple Snapshot Support
• Virtual Machine Teams
• Clones: Full and Linked
• Support for Isochronous USB Devices
• Support for 64-bit Hosts
• Performance Enhancements
  • Snapshot and suspend resume have enhanced performance, and are now background operations whenever possible.
  • Enhanced networking performance—Workstation 5 offers enhanced networking performance by leveraging our custom network driver. Once you install the updated VMware Tools, the necessary network drivers install seamlessly to offer significantly improved network performance.
  • Better memory utilization when running multiple virtual machines concurrently—Workstation 5 includes significant improvements in memory utilization when multiple virtual machines are used concurrently. This allows you to efficiently run multiple virtual machines with much less total memory.
  • Shared folders and Sound features are improved in Workstation 5.
• Enhanced Guest OS Support
  • Longhorn—Workstation 5 includes ongoing experimental support for the latest Longhorn beta releases.
  • Java Desktop System—support now included in Workstation.
  • mandrake 10.
  • Experimental support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 beta.
  • Experimental support for SuSE 9.2.
• New Features for Workstation on Linux Hosts
  • Workstation 5 offers a gtk2-based user interface on Linux, which provides an improved look and feel, and enhanced usability
  • Workstation 5 streamlines VMware Tools installation for Linux virtual machines by allowing you to install VMware Tools without exiting the X session. (Command line installations remain available, as in previous versions.)
  • Now you have a choice how to install VMware Tools on Linux guests: use the new rpm installer, or the traditional tar installer.
• V2V Assistant
• Windows Upgrade Installs
• Movie Capture
• NX Bit Support
• Command Line Utility for Teams
• Experimental Support for Guest ACPI S1 Sleep